This year makes 50 since France granted independence to its African colonies. On the whole, the moment has inspired little fanfare, perhaps because there is precious little to celebrate. If you were born in an African country, and the country you were born in happens to have once been a French colony, you are significantly less likely than your counterparts in anglophone Africa to reach your first birthday. If you do, you are less likely to go to school or learn how to read, and the country you live in is, on average, poorer and less democratic. The Internet revolution, shallow though it still may be, is being absorbed by your anglophone brothers at an exponentially faster rate, who also enjoy both higher initial stocks as well as well as faster expansion rates of telecommunications infrastructure like fixed telephone lines and mobile phones, as well as physical infrastructure like roads, electricity and rail.
Fifty years after independence, in just about every measure of human well-being and progress, there is clear evidence for a ‘francophone effect.’ Less clear is why.
Le renouveau congolais posted [Fr] a YouTube video which shows Louis Michel,
European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid and formerly
Belgian’s foreign minister, as he was confronted by Congolese
protesters during a talk given earlier this month on the EU and Africa at the London School of Economics.
I’ve just read a headline I’ve been anticipating for some time.
China, Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner and source of aid (in no small part because the rest of the world has embargoed it!) announced it will cut off all
non-humanitarian support for Robert Mugabe’s regime according to Lord
Malloch Brown, Britain’s foreign minister.
This is BIG NEWS, at least from where I’m standing.
China’s also gotten tougher on Sudan of late. Perhaps the powers
that be in Beijing believe they might gain more by playing better with
the international community.
At the very least, they can smell change in the air. Zimbabwe’s no
longer bankable, no longer a country in which to make long-term
investments in industries or in people. Politically, I get the sense
that things could turn in any number of directions at any moment.
This isn’t the Cold War anymore. China was cozy with Zimbabwe and sold
them all the neat internet filtering and radio jamming technologies its
own government so enthusiastically employs. But it was never about
ideology. It was about strategic interest. And for whatever reason,
China’s decided it’s no longer in its interest to throw its weight
behind Robert Mugabe.
(From the Daily Telegraph) Lord Malloch Brown said he had been informed of the
change by Liu Guijin, China’s new special envoy on African issues. He
said he hoped China would join the rest of the international community
in refusing to "offer a lifeline" to Mr Mugabe’s failed regime, which
has led to near universal unemployment and record inflation.
Privately,
diplomats believe that while Zimbabwe once seemed like an opportunity
for China to make diplomatic gains in an area abandoned by Western
countries, Beijing had been unable to avoid the evidence of the harm
being done to Zimbabwe’s people.
It was hard to see what long-term result China could get when Zimbabwe failed to meet basic standards of economic discipline
I ended up writing a post titled “Saving Africa in blackface” for the Guardian’s group blog, Comment is Free. Here are some of my thoughts:
“I am waiting for my last day in school; the children in Africa are waiting for their first one,” reads the slogan hovering alongside a young German girl who’s just cute as a button. It would be just another run-of-the-mill solidarity campaign, were it not for the puzzling fact that her face, stretched into a farcical grin, is covered in mud. Let’s save Africa. In blackface.
I was a bit appalled, but laughed in spite of myself. I can appreciate satire. Lord knows after Kate Moss’s Nubian makeover and Gwyneth Paltrow gone native – OK, more Cherokee Indian than Chewa, actually, but why get lost in the details? – the debate over celebrity advocacy for Africa could use some.
But an email exchange with UNICEF headquarters in New York revealed that this children’s minstrel show was not, as I had hoped, the latest in a long tradition of internet hoaxes trafficking in bad taste. It was an actual ad campaign to promote an actual plan to give African children an education: UNICEF Germany’s “Schools for Africa” initiative. All I could do was shake my head.
I was having dinner with a French-British Afrophile journalist friend here in Kigali the other night. It involved a lot of shouting and righteous anger even though we agreed with each other. Again the topic turned to aid. My journalist friend said something along these lines. I’ve elaborated:
France, 1788: The countryside is plagued by major food shortages. Mobs are lynching tax collectors. The government, which has squandered all of its tax revenue on foreign wars and luxury goods for the ruling elite, asks the international community for assistance. The World Food Program starts distributing grain. They are a major success! They save the lives of thousands who may have died of famine or malnutrition. (Had they known how many would have died under the blade of the guillotine, they would have given even more food.) The Bourbons live to see another day, and the international community implores them to be nicer. They run training workshops to sensitize the peasants on their rights as citizens.
Please don’t think me on a rampage against aid (OK, maybe I am), but I’d like to share with you a discussion going on at Global Voices in response to a blog entry I translated by a Rwanda-based Swiss blogger, Civiliste Guillaume.
In the original post, Civiliste Guillaume shares the his friends’ view on the foreign aid community (Fr):
In Rwanda, we have some friends who work in NGOs or at the United
Nations. They live more or less like kings, removed from the
population, they spend most of the day at the office…But how can they
hope to understand the reality that the people you want to help when
they themselves live in this way?!? It’s simply impossible. When we
talk with them we clearly see the extent to which they have problems
understanding the people they are supposed to help. It’s not by any ill
will on their parts, its because they are part of an organization that
does not let them. I’m not saying that we understand everything–far
from it–but for sure living everyday with children who are considered
less than nothing, we feel, rather than understand, a number of things
about their “problems” but also about their “dreams, projects and
desires” for the future.
I’ll stand up and shout when I think people are dead wrong or heading in a dangerous direction, but I’m generally the girl who sits back, listens and when she speaks tries to do so with conviction but hopes she won’t rock the boat too much. The flurry of blog posts, digg, newsvine and reddit comments, del.cio.us bookmarks, and personal emails (both laudatory and critical) since the article on aid/Bono/TED was (finally) published a few days ago has taken me by complete surprise.
I am really glad that so many people are debating these issues. And if I’ve been able to spark interest and get people talking about TED, aid, entrepreneurship, and the media’s portrayal of Africa in a meaningful way, even if it meant being uncharacteristically polemic, then I am happy for it.
But a few clarifications:
1) Yes I’ve been to Africa and no I don’t think all African children carry AK-47s – A few lazy readers have suggested I go to Africa and see for myself how wrong I am to take a few exceptional examples of African dysfunction to generalize for the entire continent.
Putting aside the fact that I had to be in Africa in order to have attended a conference in Arusha, I’ve been to seven African countries and in none of them have I seen an AK-47-toting child, people dying of famine or war, or any of the other completely ludicrous stereotypes that form the opening paragraph of the article.
This article originally appeared on this blog and has since been published at American.com. It differs slightly from the original version.
It’s time to let Africa imagine its own future.
Arusha, Tanzania–Africa is a continent of despair and desperation. Here, eight year-olds toting AK-47s massacre whole villages and eccentric dictators feast on the organs of the opposition, believing it’ll boost their mojo. Tsetse flies nibble on the eyelids of starving children who sport distended bellies like it’s their birthright, not to mention the fact that by the time you finish reading this article, another six Africans will die from malaria, five from AIDS, and seventeen from poverty and hunger. Also, the wildlife is beautiful and the people like to dance and sing.
That’s Africa, and it’s in desperate need of our help. Luckily, a few enlightened megastars from America and Europe have come to save it.
From an opinion piece from the Ugandan newspaper New Vision:
Due to Africa’s lack of understanding of the character and real
intentions of China, its relationship with the emerging Asian giant
remains largely unbalanced and unfavourable to the interests of the
African people
* * *
Uganda: African Governments Should Study Communist China
Dr. Kiggundu Amin Tamale Kampala
MUCH
has been- written about China’s burgeoning global influence and
pervasiveness as well as its seemingly insatiable desire to establish
and maintain strong economic ties with several African countries. Some
top-notch analysts have also described Beijing as a new Mecca for
global trotting- cap in hand African leaders.
However,
before declaring China as a close and dependable friend, African
policymakers need to ask themselves one important and valid question,
that is, does Africa understand communist China well? If the answer is
no, then, Africans need to find a way of understanding this hitherto
insular emerging Asian economic giant.
(I am kicking myself for missing this since I happen to be in Kampala now):
KAMPALA, June 29 (Reuters) – Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called on rich and middle-income nations on Friday to stop wasting Africa’s time with aid pledges and instead open their markets to African products.
Fair trade campaigners say rich nations such as the United States and European Union countries give aid with one hand whilst refusing to cut subsidies and tariffs with the other, making it impossible for poor countries to compete. "The Europeans waste a lot of our time coming here talking about aid," he said. "We told them: if you talk about aid, I go to sleep. What we need is market access — open your markets to our products." Billions of dollars of aid pumped into Africa in the past 30 years has sparked debate over whether money was wasted.
Museveni was speaking at a meeting on India-Africa trade in Kampala, hosting delegates from African countries and 30 Indian multinationals investing on the continent.
